Bullied at school, how one 'ugly little girl' grew up to become a beautiful writer

Elizabeth Kesses was relentlessly teased at school for her looks. Her
already low self-esteem nosedived and she developed an eating disorder. It
wasn't until a series of tragedies in her life forced her to re-evaluate who
she was and find the confidence to be herself. This is her story

The Ugly Little Girl: A triology of books written by Elizabeth Kesses, who was bullied at school and is hoping to help young people overcome body confidence issues

By Elizabeth Kesses, Author. The Ugly Little Girl

8:00AM BST 25 Jun 2014

I had a healthy childhood, comfy family life and a great education. I excelled at school and every photo of me was a smiley one. However, my smile masked the reality within. I was a happy little girl but as I progressed through primary school, my smiles were cracking. The truth was that I suffered from extremely low self-esteem, experienced bullying at school and generally felt like an oddball. By the age 10 I had started refusing to have my photo taken at all.

It began with crumbling inner confidence. I was acutely aware of what I looked like and compared myself to my peers. I wore geeky glasses, had buck teeth and frizzy hair. I was bullied mercilessly at school, called every name under the sun – 'metal mouth' for my braces, 'kiss-ass' for liking studies and 'four eyes' due to my short-sightedness. I was plagued by a constant feeling deep down that I just wasn't enough – not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enoug‎h.

My saving grace was my studies‎ and my writing. Every time I felt rejected or excluded, I would lose myself in imaginary tales of boarding schools and fairy-tale worlds. I even made flower water, potions that would make me less ugly. Absolute dedication to my studies earned me a place at the University of Oxford, but this pattern led me to make life choices later on, based on what I thought I ought to do rather than what I really wanted.

I grew up so full of insecurities, that on leaving Oxford University with a 2:1, I was so desperate to get a job that I took the first one I was offered, as it happens, in advertising. After a couple of years, I chose to work at a strategy start up and had three male bosses. ‎ During those years, I did nothing but work to prove myself and then complete gruelling spinning classes at the gym.

If my work mode was destructive, my attitude to relationships was a car crash. Low self-esteem leads to irregular behaviour, so I ended up dating and seeing guys that were older, wiser and more intelligent. In hindsight, I chose partners who brought me down, to reinforce the negative perceptions I had of myself. I believed that I just didn't deserve love. To cap it all, during this period I would fall into patches of other irregular behaviour, developing an eating disorder, to control the one thing that belonged to me, my body.

Turning point

Then, in my mid-thirties, my carefully constructed but unhappy world imploded. In quick succession, I had a miscarriage, my marriage broke down, I parted company with a tough employer, leaving a very senior position, and I lost my beloved father. This prompted me to do a lot of soul-searching to find things in life that I was passionate about, rather than what people expected of me. I ran away to Australia and checked myself into therapy and took a long hard look at myself. Through this process, I reflected that I had really enjoyed writing stories as a kid, I had studied literature at Oxford but never given myself permission to define myself as a 'writer'. I was too scared of failing to even try.

Bruised but free, I returned from Australia and relocated to France. I started a relationship with a partner who was actually kind to me, and took my first steps on a new career path, writing for a well known blog. It was a risk, but it felt worth it. I began blogging about my life as a'Britchick' in Paris. This evolved into a more personal blog about how I felt. Every time something touched me I needed to publish it. I wrote about my miscarriage as it happened, about grief after losing a parent and then when I wasn't looking for it, on a sunny day in Deauville, my writing mission stared me in the face. ‎

I was sitting at a café on the seafront in Deauville and was confronted with a shocking sight. There at a next door table was a little girl, of around 10, who looked exactly as I did at her age. Emotionally, it was like a thunder bolt and I immediately burst into tears. Her apparent awkwardness really touched me and brought those buried emotions to the fore. That afternoon I started writingThe Ugly Little Girl.

Initially, I thought it might be a blog post, but I just didn't stop writing. And by the end of 2013, I had completed a trilogy of books.

I drew on my own experiences to create the miserable and isolated world Libby in the book experiences at school. Except in this story she is like me by day and by night she escapes in her pyjamas to a magic school called Oddbods. At Oddbods, there are self-esteem classes in the hall of mirrors and 'freakography' lessons involving time travel to transport pupils to explore the weirdest and most wonderful aspects of the natural world. Oddbods is a safe haven for them that accepts all and judges no one. Instead they are encouraged to nurture their passions and talents, whether it be creativity, bravery, kindness or wisdom. For self esteem comes from a sense of achievement, from doing what you love.

Force for good

I know a trilogy of books can't cure a pandemic that makes 75 per cent of girls have something bad to say about their looks. In a world where young people are increasingly saturated with images of unrealistically 'perfect' girls who have been airbrushed and Photoshopped, with half saying they'd like to look more like the pictures of girls and women they see in the media, according to a recent Girl Guides survey, it's clear we have an uphill struggle ahead in terms of trying to help girls value themselves for their achievements, not looks.

But I hope that my books can become part of a drive for change that involves educators, parents, guardians, psychologists and role mod‎els. My journey as an author has resulted in a more fulfilling vocation than I could ever have imagined. I have linked with like-minded people and organisations and become involved in discussion forums, workshops and research panels, all looking at ways to address the issues of low self-esteem in young women.

Low self-esteem is a major cause of eating disorders, depression, anxiety and addictions. It is one of the greatest threats to a person's well-being and a major inhibitor to a successful and fulfilling life. And awareness of this issue is increasing every day.

Along my journey, I have learned that if you're not being true to your innermost desires then it is hard to have the courage of your convictions. I have learned to thank all the bad experiences for they weren't failures – they were stepping stones to getting happy. I recently spoke to a woman in her 50s who had been mercilessly bullied ‎as a child at home and at school. She had never spoken to anyone before and was ready to unravel the mess inside her. And it made me realise that it is never too late to become the person you want to be.

You're not just enough, you're more than enough. You are braver, smarter, stronger than you will ever know.

Elizabeth Kesses was born in Athens, studied at Oxford, did marketing, then found writing. She's just completed the trilogy The Ugly Little Girl. She can be found tweeting @britchickparis.